The present invention relates to an infant warming apparatus and, more particularly, to a humidifier for adding moisture to the environment within the infant care apparatus.
There are, of course, many differing types of infant incubators currently available and most have some means of humidifying the air that is delivered to the infant compartment within the incubator. The infant compartment itself is a controlled environment within which the infant is positioned and where the environment is controlled to provide warmth and humidity to the infant for its wellbeing.
Typical of such humidifiers is the use of a reservoir that underlies the infant compartment and where the heated air to be delivered to that compartment passes over the water contained within the reservoir to increase the humidity, at a controlled rate, of the heated air that is then passed into the infant compartment. Thus, one of the common means of humidification for an infant incubator includes a means of causing the heated air to pass over a body of water, generally heated, where the warm air picks up water vapor and delivers the warm air laden with the water vapor to the infant compartment. One such humidification system is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,190 of Gloyd et al.
As a drawback of many present systems for humidification, the reservoirs are generally difficult to remove for cleaning and, additionally, some of the reservoirs normally slide horizontally from the humidifier in order to allow filling. The movement of the reservoir filed with water is somewhat difficult in the infant care environment and can cause the spilling of water. The water is also commonly spilled simply due to overfilling of the reservoir. The presence of spilled water is undesirable in that it can be a ground for contamination in the otherwise warm, damp surroundings.